Psychology of Consumer Behaviour | Scoop.it

Monday, September 7, 2009

Hoaxes and Pranks- Scams and Flim Flam Oh Yeah- To The Moon

I love a good hoax.

Last week a Bangladeshi newspaper published an article claiming that Neil Armstrong had admitted that he had been part of an elaborate hoax- there had been no moon landing. Their source -The Onion.
It wasn't April Fool's day.

In 1835 The New York Sun ran a series of stories about the discovery of life on the moon: Bison, goats, unicorns and bat-winged humans. The story reported that the discoveries were made by well known astronomer John Herschel. Of course it was all made up and it was done to increase sales of the paper. The tale of the hoax even grew when people began to report that, "Daily sales of the Sun skyrocketed from 4,000 to 19,000–making it the world's most popular paper and launching a new kind of journalism." This too was a gross exaggeration.

Wired has just published "Wired's Guide to Hoaxes:How to Give and Take - a Joke." Everything you wanted to know about getting punked, spoofed, tricked or a little do it your self hoaxing Wired's Guide to Hoaxes

For even more on hoaxes see The Hoax Museum Blog

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